Frequently Asked Questions

Under what licenses is CppCMS offered?

CppCMS is offered under free and open source license LGPLv3 and
under Commercial license that allows you to develop fully
closed source software.

Are there any difference between CppCMS under commercial and open source licenses?

Under both licenses you receive exactly the same code, however
the terms of use are very different.

What are the benefits of using commercial license?

Even though, LGPLv3 is considered "closed source" friendly license
it puts multiple restrictions on the use of the source code.
Basically When you redistribute your software you must provide
the source code of the CppCMS framework and provide tools
to the user to do such changes in the code, including:

Reverse engineer your software so the users can understand, for example, how to fix
possible bugs in CppCMS

Allow your user to update the CppCMS code and make changes in it. For example,
LGPLv3 prevents Tivoization
of the CppCMS code

So if you want to fully protect your proprietary secrets and/or prevent from your
users to make changes in your software you should use the commercial license

If you are not sure that you can fully comply with LGPLv3 requirements you should
use the commercial license. You will always be able to switch to open-source license
later, but you can't do it the other way around.

Can I switch from LGPL to the commercial CppCMS license

No, there is an explicit restriction (p 3.1) that prevents from you to switch
from the open source license to the commercial one. If you have doubts whether you can
comply with LGPLv3 restrictions you should purchase a commercial license

I had developed my application using the CppCMS license under LGPL
before the commercial license was available. Can I switch to the commercial license?